


Lensherr M.D.

by Vestal



Category: House M.D., X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Dry Wit, Indirect Self-Harm, Multi, One Liners, PTSD, Professional Tension, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Tension, Surgical Imagery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-02
Updated: 2012-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-04 17:33:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vestal/pseuds/Vestal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moira MacTaggert, the long suffering Dean of Medicine at Westchester Hospital is beginning to regret hiring Erik Lensherr.</p><p>Fortunately, Dr Xavier specialises in difficult cases.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Inconvenient Man

**Author's Note:**

> MASSIVE APOLOGY ALERT.
> 
> God, so sorry about that. This is my first time using the Archive and while I was trying to edit a chapter I managed to delete the whole thing.
> 
> I'm such a bloody moron.

It was two in the morning and no one was asleep.

From the glossed over expression Cassidy wasn’t awake as such - but technically his eyes were open and there was a textbook on top of his pot-noodles so he counted. Darkholme had clearly lost the feeling in her left hand due to those caffeine pills she chewed through; McCoy was muttering logarithms to himself and Summers … was somewhere. Else. Preferably not near anything explosive or expensive.

Emma Frost M.D. drawled her eyes over Xavier’s motley group of doctor-lings once again and ran her tongue against the back of her uncannily white teeth, irritated at their appearances.

Good God. The place stank of exhaustion.

She knew that McCoy and Summers were on back-to-back shifts but the others hadn’t bothered mentioning to Xavier that they weren’t formally on call. Yet still there was an air of tired willingness and good humour as Raven offered her hair clip to McCoy when his fringe caught in the rim of his glasses for the second time.

It was grinding.

The beatific, anti-professional attitude of one Charles Xavier was ruining her hospital. With his holistic approach and his acceptance of the place of placebo, religious reassurance and psychology in modern medicine, Xavier was bringing in nothing short of miraculous results. Waking a near vegetative coma patient using plain song, the recorded sound of a crying child and what he referred to as ‘electronic acupuncture’ had impressed MacTaggert so much that he had been allowed to import his group of misbegotten medics from the hospitals where he had stowed them while he nestled in. The ‘team’, once it arrived, had consisted of an ex-convict, a chemical physicist who dressed like senility itself, his half-sister and an Irish cretin who had a habit of singing almost constantly under his breath. Unfortunately with them he was even more devastatingly effective and it had turned out that these ‘students’ of his were all specialists in their individual fields.

Dr Frost plucked a piece of lint off of her pristine, lab coat, moving gracefully to the makeshift kitchen. Her own reflection stared back from the counter, more polished than the granite surface it was mirrored in, though her face frowned surreptitiously as the silence of the room yielded.

“Good morning, everyone.” A voice entered the room, followed by a smile, followed by a man with unsettlingly bright eyes. The interns sat up a little straighter. Cassidy blinked slowly in greeting and McCoy hurried to put on the kettle, brushing past her with a haphazard apology as he seized four mugs.

“’Good’ is just inappropriate Charles. It’s grossly early, have some respect for the dead-on-their-feet.” Raven threw back at him, curling her hand into a fist and then splaying the fingers, working the resistance from the muscles. Charles joined her, taking her hand and massaging it gently.

Another thing that Frost disliked about Xavier was that he somehow had charmed the rest of the staff into thinking that it was perfectly acceptable that he should work with his sister. Apparently he was so outstandingly moral that little details like familial relations wouldn’t impair his judgment when it came to ethics tribunals. Her thoughts dripped with sarcasm and she returned to fixing a salad.

Nor was his long-standing friendship with the Dean commented on. While this should have aggravated her more than Darkholme's presence, her deep-seated (and entirely clandestine) respect for the other woman tempered her vexation. She had no doubt that, regardless of her friendship with Xaiver, she would discipline him if the circumstances called for it. Moira would always put the hospital first.

The clock chimed the half-hour, reminding her how unpleasantly early it was.

Normally Emma would never agree to work hours like this. She was an eminent reconstructive surgeon and did not need these unpractical hours thieving her beauty sleep. However Moira had informed her that the new consultant was to join the ranks today and, with a spiteful pleasure, she was looking forward to seeing Xavier pushed off of his pedestal.

Emma had worked with Erik Lensherr briefly during her spell at the Institute for Military Health (IMH), a placement she had taken to accumulate the charitable credentials that made it so much easier to shift into the lucrative world of cosmetic surgery. It always made the patients so trusting as she assured them that they were so physically abhorrent that they should go under the knife.

From what she had gleaned Lensherr had begun as a field surgeon on the streets of Beirut at the age of fourteen, learning from his father how to cauterize a wound with whatever you had at hand. Only acquiring a real medical license at twenty-four he had nearly lost it at twenty five when he replaced a dying man’s kidney with a pig’s in order to save his life. The fact that he hadn’t asked the permission of the ethics committee or the patient had caused a bit of a buzz.

Lensherr, in response to the criticisms, had said that he didn’t keep kosher anymore. Emma had almost laughed.

Rigidly scientific, unsympathetic towards patients and other doctors alike and, with the kind of personal magnetism that bent people and rules around him, Lensherr was the diametric opposite of Xavier.

And would be getting off his flight at three am.

He should be in the hospital by five.

She had no intention of missing the firework display.

-

“Get her up to the ECU. She’s exhibiting a swinging fever, over 40 Celsius. Drill the boyfriend for any Malarial hot spots they might have visited and how long there have been signs of illness. Then double whatever he says.” Erik ran a hand over his eyes, appreciating the temporary shadow as his pupils adjusted to the sterile brilliance of the hospital lighting.

The two paramedics carting the girl in nodded, having been … educated into compliance over the course of the ambulance trip. Lensherr replied in kind and rolled his neck, working out the tension of the flight.

He should be grateful he supposed. It had certainly been faster than a cab.

An overweight nurse with androgenic (difficult to tell with the amount of estrogen those fat stores would be secreting) alopecia started to contradict him, strutting out from behind the reception. His headache protested. Damn – would all the nurses be dressed in purple?

“Hey! Hey, you - you can’t just come in here like that you know! This is a proper hospital, not some free clinic you flight medics can use as a disposal bin.” Erik had at least a meter’s head start towards the elevator well, but the indignant man hurried after him, shouting for security loud enough that Erik was obliged to slow down. Once in hearing distance Erik grimaced and turned his head over his shoulder, unwilling to completely break stride.

“I'm not a flight medic, though I have been on a plane with a rapidly deteriorating twenty-two year old female since nineteen-hundred hours your time and my patience is suffering for it. And from this moment I am an attendant at this hospital. The name is Lensherr. Look it up.” He caught the elevator door before it closed, slipping inside and shrugging off his jacket in the same movement, the chrome panels sliding shut on the double chins of the nurse’s bewildered expression.

It was a satisfying look. Erik replayed it in his mind’s eye even as his brain relaxed into two parts, one sifting through the observations he had garnered from watching the girl during the flight, the other wishing the elevator music would give up rather than playing through its own static.

“Why multiply by two?”

Surprised, and then disconcerted by being caught unawares Erik snapped around to meet the source of the question. A pair of blue eyes stared curiously up at him –

 _\- empty eyes, blue where the bomb light had scarred the cataract -_

No. 

Stop. 

Control it.

Erik held himself still, catching the tremor in his shoulders before it could give him away.

The other occupant of the elevator was a man. 5’7”, his age, with smile lines ornamenting those uncannily innocent eyes. He wasn’t dressed in a lab coat but he had a clipboard beneath his arm, and an air of self-possessed calm that no patient would wear. Patients, to Erik’s knowledge, oscillated between blind-fear and blind-relief.

He returned himself to the question, his mouth moving almost automatically, but eloquent in a way that he only managed when he was discussing medicine, “If she was travelling it meant that it wasn’t serious enough to keep her bedridden. The boyfriend isn’t the observant type; any symptoms he noticed will have been the more serious ones, late stage and with a fever this violent - it has to have been gathering force over a considerable time frame.” He calculated briefly, “Three weeks incubation. At least. I doubt he’ll give the orderlies more than ten days.”

There was a period of consideration, as the metal box floated between the floors, settling onto the third. The man was still looking at him, smiling thoughtfully and said, “I’d multiply by three. From what I saw the boyfriend looked Irish. They're naturally stoical.”

Erik’s face flinched towards a scowl, “I didn’t invite your opinion.”

“But you won’t disregard it.” The man stepped towards the doors as they began to open, “It was nice to meet you Dr Lensherr.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So - actual notes:
> 
> My medical knowledge is pretty skivvy so if anyone out there happens to be a medicine buff and would care to help me work on the episodes it would be ridiculously appreciated.
> 
> That said I'll probably nick some of the medical plot lines from House.
> 
> Anyway, welcome (back) and enjoy!


	2. First Impressions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so I genuinely need some help learning to navigate this site. If anyone could volunteer it would be a relief, and in the meantime I'll read the guide. 
> 
> Honestly. I can't even get rid of the notes at the bottom of the page.

Xavier's little circus had finally left, and Emma was touching up her make up when she heard the sound of distinctly martial footsteps approaching the lounge.

Putting away her mascara, she arranged herself against the counter; cat, cream, easy metaphors and the kind of leonine posture that tamed the harshest tempers. It was a pose so well practiced that it had become flawlessly natural.

The door opened forcefully and a man entered. Black turtleneck, slacks, a leather jacket thrown over his forearm. Dressed for silence and for breaking difficult news.

Erik suited that look. Though, Emma decided, the effect would be even more striking contrasted against her personal palette of white and blonde.

“Hello Erik. It’s a pleasure to see you again.” She curled her voice around his name and smiled.

He glanced up, responding to the words with a blank look. The morning light drifted over her shoulders, glimmering through wanton gold locks and creating an ethereal effect. An effect that was clearly lost on its desired audience. He gave her a cursory glance as he crossed to the bank of lockers and spoke in a brief tone, “Have we met?”

Emma’s expression froze, the smile acquiring the uncomforting stillness of a photograph.

Opening her mouth, whilst keeping her anger allayed was something of a challenge, “It’s early I suppose.” She walked over, standing close and stroking a hand down his bicep, “So I’ll forgive you, you must be worn out.”

“Emma Frost. You and I operated in the same unit in the IMH. I was fascinated by your work.” He seemed a little more responsive to her mention of his vocation, and she made a note of it for later. Typically she preferred that any man she chose should adore her above all else, but even his medical obsession held a certain appeal. It made him … intense.

“So.” She joined him as he moved away and sat down, the three-piece suite still scattered with the evidence of Xavier’s team. That textbook was lying abandoned on the glass coffee table, though the pot noodles had disappeared, “You’ll need someone to tell you more about the hospital. Maps and brochures are always so dry. The facilities are much better than the IMH. There’s NMR scanning available, the oncology department has its own PET scanner, the café food is bearable unlike that terrible converted mess hall. The research department is far more capable, their epidemiological consultant Dr. Drake was awarded the - ”

“Actually.” Erik interrupted crudely, as if only just catching the thread of the offer, “There is something I’d like to know about. Someone.” Lensherr’s gaze fell away from her, passing through middle distance and staring into memory.

“There was a doctor in the lift on the way up. Blue eyes. Tell me about him.”

As she said. Charles Xavier was _ruining_ her hospital.


	3. Rumor and Intrusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a surprising amount of purple in this hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, quick chapter because you're all lovely and I still feel bad about accidentally deleting this. Next chapter might take a day or two - I have to read Leviathan and then I have to recover from reading Leviathan.

“Rather a curt description, isn’t it? Perhaps I don’t know who you have in mind.” He watched her long, fine-boned fingers pick at the fabric of the sofa. There was something about her face. He could definitely believe they had met before; the predatory shine of her teeth had a kind of familiarity. But her beauty was so archetypical that it could just be the echo of unnumbered glamour models, the peripheral memory of billboards and magazine spreads. 

Erik didn’t reply. Distaste had filmed her expression when he had mentioned the blue-eyed man. If she didn’t like him then she knew who he was.

“Or maybe I do. You will mean Xavier.” She finally worked the thread loose, rubbing it between the tips of her fingers until the weave broke down, the purple threading fragmenting into blue and red, “He is a research geneticist from England, though he heads a department under the rather cryptic title of ‘diagnostics’. I believe he had some kind of falling out with his research body over an ethical quandary.” 

“Why do you ask, Erik?” She questioned, as she brought her glass of water to her lips.

“He seemed interesting.” He didn’t elaborate, and kept his tone smooth. Still, he allowed himself to press her once more, “What is a consultant doing on the floor this late?” 

The woman finished her drink but paused, as if tasting her wetted mouth for the answer, “Xavier – “

“Hey Frost. Bitching out the Professor again?” A voice carried from the kitchenette and a young, blonde man appeared from behind the partial wall that interrupted the open plan of the room. 

Without turning her head she retorted, “Hello Alexander. Did Charles send you to the corner for breaking more than your usual quota.” The youth seemed impervious to the older woman’s bite though and sat down in the recliner opposite the television.

“Nope. Had a malarial patient come in earlier but Sean’s doing the blood work and I got sick of watching Hank and Raven do their one-step-forward-two-steps-back dance.” He cracked open a coke can and knocked it back, “You’d think they’d never heard of fucking.”

“Wait – he’s treating the malarial case?” Erik leaned forward, his body on the verge of rising, “I brought her in. She’s already quarantined in the febrile unit, it would be wiser to focus on the history.” 

“Gotta do the bloods, otherwise admin gets upset. We could just put her on doxycycline and get rid of the malaria and the acne in one shot but, you know, might be worth actually diagnosing it first.” In a practiced move the kid stuck his hand down the back of the recliner and pulled out a television remote, hitting the power button.

“Malarial bloods are a waste of time.” Erik stood, mentally orientating himself according to the maps he had scanned on the way to the airport, “What tests are you using?” 

The boy flipped on the channel, “You know you ask a lot of questions for a guy who hasn’t told me his name.” His voice had been edged throughout the exchange, but there had been no real hostility in it. That changed now and Erik’s opinion of the boy rose.

“This is Dr Erik Lensherr,” Emma spoke from the background, her tone acerbic.

“Oh hey!” The blonde head turned from the television where a soap opera was unfolding in technicolor melodrama, “You’re the guy who cut that pregnant woman in half to remove her tumour, then put her back together. Seriously, that was like a damn magic trick. Sean wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks.” 

Erik hand stilled, reaching for one of the replacement lab coats. 

A magic trick.

He _despised_ the media.

The baby had died.

_“But I don’t … why is her chest so flat?”_  
Premature. Skin like a fish when you remove the scales.  
“I’m sorry. Bones are soft initially. If a child never breathes the bones don’t rise.”  
“Please. Put her back inside me. I'm not whole - I don't - please. Please.” 

When he looked down his hand was locked into a fist. 

He left the coat and the lounge, and headed for the second floor.


	4. Hard Mornings

Moira MacTaggert switched her coffee to her left hand; adjusting the papers she was reading so that they were – somewhat reluctantly – balanced on her forearm. Still reading, she fumbled her key into the lock and pushed it open with one sensible, brown leather court shoe. The number blurred under her sleep deprived gaze, eyes still a little brackish at the edges.

Bureaucracy was going to send her to an early grave.

“Hello Moira.” 

Unless Charles managed it first. 

Still refusing to look up she replied, “Get off my desk Charles. And stop playing with the Newton’s cradle.”

A smile warmed the air and the gentle click of the little silver spheres knocking against each other vanished. A hand took her coffee and another the forms, and Moira buried her face into a comforting, cardigan-covered shoulder. 

“Tired love?”

“Mrmph.”

“It’s six in the morning. You shouldn’t come in so early. I thought that would be one of the advantages of being your own boss.” He stroked her auburn hair, unwashed but tidy enough and pulled back by an ebony barrette that Charles had brought for her when he came home from Benin. She loved this kind of jewellery with the unapologetic solidity of the design but she spent more than was quite comfortable with trying to make sure everything came from ethically validated sources. Then Charles had turned up, his sun-burn shining through any skin that had been spared his freckle infestation, with a certificate of purchase and and the hair pin clutched in his hand. A sort of offering so that she wouldn't kill him for running off to Benin without so much as a phone call. 

Moira gave a shallow, somewhat muffled laugh at the idea of a lie in, “It’s auditing season. The Internal Revenue Service is on the hunt so I have to be up nights making sure the accounts are watertight. “

“Didn’t Dean Michaels hire an accountant before he left?”

“He hired an idiot.”

“Ah.” The gentle caress was sending her back to sleep so she stepped back, yawning and pinching the bridge of her nose. It had been a long night and it would be a long day. Grateful for the way the blinds muted the sunlight, Moira took off her coat, smoothing a few droplets away before hanging it up beside the door. It wasn’t raining quite, but there was an impression of water in the air outside. 

She took the work back from Charles, filing it for after lunch, and settled behind the desk. It was a good chair, brilliant actually, and what Michaels had lacked in his taste in accountants he had made up for in furniture choices. With a half wave she invited Charles to sit too. It was a strange, persistent quirk of his – a hangover from his wealthy and severe upbringing. Even after eight years of friendship, plus an initial two spent violently disagreeing about everything and dating each other in between, he still waited for her permission before sitting.

Apparently the same etiquette didn’t apply about breaking into her office.

“Did I forget to tell the new PA not to let you in here?” Moira asked as Charles returned her coffee. 

Charles did that smug little head cock of his and smiled in a manner that could only be described as coy, saying, “She mentioned that initially, but we had a very lovely conversation about her sister’s pregnancy. It seems she’s not sure whether to have a water birth. Chatted for a while before getting onto local restaurants. And now, here I am.” 

“I’m going to fire everyone today.” 

“Quite the opposite.” Charles paused, his words and manner taking on a more serious tone as he folded one leg over the other, “Why didn’t you tell me you were hiring Erik Lensherr?” The weight of his listening had become almost physical.

“Do I need to justify everything I do to you?” She said sharply, finding herself unconsciously tensing. Despite knowing that this conversation was inevitable she was still left feeling like a guilty teenager in front of some disappointed adult. Charles could provoke that reaction in most people, giving him an uncanny ability to convince patients to accept his more unorthodox techniques. For God’s sake though, she was the Dean of Medicine. 

“I wasn’t asking you to defend his presence. Just tell me why hiring one of _the most_ controversial surgeons in the Western hemisphere wasn’t worth mentioning in passing. Moira, I discovered the man was a consultant at the same time Louis, the nurse at reception, did.” His voice wasn’t raised, just emphatic and slightly strained. He was unhappier about this then he was showing, “Why is he here? He will hate my method, and I don’t want it to but this _is_ going to cause tension.” The carelessness he normally projected had gone completely, words flicking off his tongue like their taste was too bitter too contain.

Moira took a moment, selecting her words with some care. Dust played in the morning-blue light.

“I could give you a lot of reasons.” She said quietly, “After his refusal to treat soldiers from Iraq in protest the IMH they were letting him go for a bargain. Westchester is already known for it’s unusual methods and so the board of directors is more accommodating than many hospitals, I imagine that was why he was so willing to transfer. But …” And here she did meet his gaze, secure in the knowledge that she would not let this opportunity go; for the sake of the hospital and for the sake of her friend, “Charles, how many surgeries have you performed since you got here?”

Clearly thrown by her apparent deviation the man’s brow creased, and he bit a flush into his lips as he concentrated. Memory evading him he replied, “I’m sure you're going to tell me.”

Moira reached out to touch the his hand, trying to pass on her warmth to his perpetually cold hands. "Oh Charles." She took a breath, "You can't detach yourself anymore, and it's breaking you."


	5. Seizure

Erik was not enjoying himself. Or the fact that the layout that had been delivered a week ago to his sterile New York apartment had apparently been a total fantasy, an idealized version absent of the milling families, interns and general incompetents that filled the corridors with bickering and the smell of tuna sandwiches. 

So far he had ended up walking into two closets. Which was more on the nose than he cared for. Apparently the universe was feeling ironic this morning. 

How he had gotten here, he wasn’t wholly sure, but it might have been for sinning in a previous life because there was no way the walk-in clinic would be described as anything other than hell.

A stuffed bear was shoved into his face.

“Cornelius has got spots.” Said a very small, gender ambiguous human being who was covered in a red rash and an exceptionally large and ugly hat. 

“No shit.” 

“Doctor!” The mother’s hat was also an eye sore. The kid seemed moderately appreciative of the swearing.

“Yes. He says he’s very itchy but that he’s not allowed to pick the spots, but that’s even more annoying than _having_ them!” The child was waving the bear vigorously, and a button eye gave him a baleful look. The sentence was a feat of a single breath, and as Erik deconstructed it the kid, determining that his or her job was done, pulled the hat further down and wrapped itself around the bear. 

Erik leant back, flicking through the file. Apparently the whole place had gone digital a while back, but years of working in the field had made him used to working with paper and doctor’s scrawl. Doubtless it was time to update and start using the computer but he wasn’t in the mood to care right now. 

“So she’s had chicken pox twice already?” He asked, flicking his eyes up to the mother.

“Yes, I mean they say you can only get it once but – “

“’They say’ is rarely an accurate means of diagnosing an illness.” He said, “Where did the sores start?”

“Well that’s what was unusual about it! Every other time they were on her chest first, but I noticed it when I was brushing her hair last night and they were on the scalp and I was thinking – “

“Don’t do that. It’s early stage non-bullous impetigo. Highly infectious – do you have any other children?”

“Oh my God! No we don’t but will she be – “

“I’ll give you a bactericidal ointment. Wash her with soap and lukewarm water when you get back – don’t submerge her, just wipe her down with a cloth. Then let her dry in the air rather then using a towel. Keep her on clean sheets and disinfect them afterwards. Lots of fluids and bed rest. It’ll fix up in 48 hours.”

The mother was trying to say something but Erik was getting bored and the kid was getting fidgety so he guided her to the door using a combination of height and silence. 

He opened the door, “And disinfect the bear.”

Rid of the patients he began to methodically pack up the office before another nurse could come in and shove another fourth case of man flu into the clinic. Binning the two syringes he had applied for vaccination, he sterilized the counter and washed his hands, allowing himself a pause of one minute to feel the hot water spill through his fingers. There hadn’t been much time to clean himself on the plane, and though they had offered him a business class ticket he had ignored it. What kind of place would waste money concerning themselves over whether their surgeons had complementary orange juice or not? 

The luxury of the clean heat against his skin though, that was not lost to Erik.

Hygiene had always been rigorously observed in the field; the threat of a court marshal sharpening the doctor’s eyes to dirt under their fingernails and stains on their clothing. In the conditions the measures had often seemed like an exercise in futility, worrying over sterilized scalpels when the men were packed two to a bed, blood and fluid drying on each others bodies.

But still it was insisted upon, and the doctors were always clean and bare armed. It was strange how much younger a man looked when you could see the skin at his wrists.

Erik finished, dried his hands and stepped out, refusing to be obstructed by the pleading or perplexed glances of the nurses as he left and headed for the lift. His journey to the second floor had been a loss. The girl was still in the fever unit but he hadn’t seen hide or hair of Xavier. 

Erik ran a hand through his coarse dark hair and then pulled it forwards in mild frustration. He wanted to see the blue-eyed doctor again, partially to demand his patient back but, he had to admit, partially out of curiosity.

He had heard of Xavier. Of course he had heard of Xavier. The man had been an internationally famous researcher, a medical polymath who had written papers on psychiatry, genetics, anesthesiology, neurology – he was extraordinary, even by Erik’s own demanding standards. 

And then Xavier had abruptly ceased publishing five years ago, leaving Britain and going off the radar entirely until he had reemerged in Westchester. There he had set up the methodologically strangest department anyone had ever seen. It was purportedly diagnostic in focus, for patients from hospitals where a differential could not be attained, but Xavier’s medicines were what had sparked conversation and, at the IMH, derision. 

Soft medication they called it, laughing over thin soups and thick coffee. Knife free, drug-delicate work for boys who couldn't stomach more than pen nibs and chromosome print outs. 

His mentor had been more considered in his opinion when Erik had mentioned it, remarking that though Xavier was clearly achieving notable results at Westchester, his treatment was at odds with his research. Reading the work himself Erik had found that he could not disagree. 

The Xavier who had written these papers was far more aggressive. The ideas he had written about were pioneering, offering potential solutions for a myriad of conditions with much of his work focusing on a more active combination of psychiatric and psychotherapeutic regimens. He emphasised the reciprocal relationship between the body and the brain, and often identified the body as the best way to 'break in' to the mental cages of the severely ill. Controversially he had even advocated ECT in one of his later works, arguing the modern reluctance to use the method was just a knee jerk reaction against nineteenth century cruelty. He argued that the relapse rate among ECT patients was due to the fact that the only cases treated with the electroconvulsive therapy were those that had resisted everything else. They were the most severe samples, and so the statistics were inherently flawed.

It was a devastatingly good thesis that had nearly seen him blacklisted by the BMJ. But, undeterred, the man had carried on writing for another eight months. Even when the GMC itself suggested that he might like to reconsider one or two of his more accessible articles on pharmaceutical ethics, he had held his own. Behind everything he wrote there had been a kind of desperate emotion. Like it was a game and a war and a principle simultaneously. It had –

It had made so much _sense_ to Erik. 

Then, with an electronic scream, his pager vibrated furiously. He pulled it off his belt, eyes snapping down to the illuminated screen.

“Seizure, febrile unit, patient 422.”


End file.
